China's in the Lead

 

Opdivo Time Again

Hard to believe that we are approaching the end of September and soon it will be October.  Tomorrow, I go to Knoxville for my 75th OPD  IVO infusion...  it will be an interesting infusion for me because I am 75 years of age. 

Next month, it will obviously be my 76th infusion and in the month of October I will turn 76.  Fortunately, I will not age as fast as my infusions.  lol

At the end of 2023, I will be completing my 15th year of treatments for non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and my 10th year of treatments for metastasized Melanoma.

My OPDIVO treatments are for the Melanoma which according to the most recent PET scan show no activity and no growth.

They say LUCK FAVORS THE PREPARED...  I am not sure if I believe that or not because I consider myself very lucky to say the least.  My Oncologist is no more prepared than any other Oncologist and there have been many people who have died just having one of my cancers.

On Friday, I will have an infusion of IVIG which is basically synthesized plasma and gamma globulin from a horde on donors.  This infusion is supposed to boost my immune system.

Because of all these treatments I have had and continue to have my white blood count is low...  hence low immunity.  My red blood count is low...  hence anemia.  My platelets are low...  hence my blood does not clot quickly.

My treatments also create fatigue and the IVIG is supposed to help improve that as well.  It will not eliminate the fatigue, but it will reduce it some.

I have been getting monthly IVIG treatments for about 4-5 years and while this has been an ongoing process, I seem to be feeling less fatigued than before.  I hope that is not wishful thinking or just in my imagination.

So, tomorrow, I go to Knoxville and on Friday I go up to Morristown which is about 15-20 minutes from the house as opposed to 40-45 minutes to Knoxville.  Neither distance is bad...  however, the parking is worse in Knoxville.

Garage Shelving

 

Painting with Cosmic Neutrinos

THE ORIGINAL VERSION of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine.

Of the 100 trillion neutrinos that pass through you every second, most come from the sun or Earth’s atmosphere. But a smattering of the particles—those moving much faster than the rest—traveled here from powerful sources farther away. For decades, astrophysicists have sought the origin of these “cosmic” neutrinos. Now, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory has finally collected enough of them to reveal telltale patterns in where they’re coming from.

In a paper published in June in Science, the team revealed the first map of the Milky Way in neutrinos. (Usually our galaxy is mapped out with photons, particles of light.) The new map shows a diffuse haze of cosmic neutrinos emanating from throughout the Milky Way, but strangely, no individual sources stand out. “It’s a mystery,” said Francis Halzen, who leads IceCube.

The results follow an IceCube study from last fall, also in Science, that was the first to connect cosmic neutrinos to an individual source. It showed that a large chunk of the cosmic neutrinos detected so far by the observatory have come from the heart of an “active” galaxy called NGC 1068. In the galaxy’s glowing core, matter spirals into a central supermassive black hole, somehow making cosmic neutrinos in the process.

“It’s really gratifying,” said Kate Scholberg, a neutrino physicist at Duke University who wasn’t involved in the research. “They’ve actually identified a galaxy. This is the kind of thing the entire neutrino astronomy community has been trying to do for forever.”

Pinpointing cosmic neutrino sources opens up the possibility of using the particles as a new probe of fundamental physics. Researchers have shown that the neutrinos can be used to open cracks in the reigning standard model of particle physics and even test quantum descriptions of gravity.

Yet identifying the origin of at least some cosmic neutrinos is only a first step. Little is known about how the activity around some supermassive black holes generates these particles, and so far the evidence points to multiple processes or circumstances.  READ MORE...

Big Cat

 

Wisdom

 According to an online dictionary, WISDOM is defined as:

the ability or result of an ability to think and act utilizing knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight. accumulated knowledge, erudition, or enlightenment.

Before I begin my comments, I believe a couple more definitions are required.

ERUDITION - is the quality of having or showing great knowledge or learning; scholarship.

ENLIGHTENMENT - is the action of enlightening or the state of being enlightened.

Let's just say that enlightenment is another word for wisdom and leave it at that while erudition is that fact that one has wisdom.

WISDOM is predicated upon THINKING AND ACTING based upon one's:

• accumulated knowledge
• accumulated experiences
• accumulated understanding
• accumulated insights
• accumulated common sense

The key word here is accumulated which is why I have repeated it several times.  In order to have anything accumulated, one must have lived a bunch of years...

• more than 10
• more than 20
• more than 30
• more than 40
• more than 50
• more than 60
• more than 70

I am looking at age 70 as the time when people retire and most of one's accumulation has already taken place.

NOW...  just because you have accumulation does not mean you automatically have wisdom...

Why not?

Because, if you recall, wisdom is also predicated upon COMMON SENSE.

Without common sense, it is doubtful that you will ever have TRUE WISDOM.

Common sense can be acquired for some but most of the time, one is either born with it or one is not born with it.

Without common sense, your end-of-life wisdom is TAINTED and could even be false.

How do you acquire common sense?

That will be the subject of my next post...

Dolphins

 

The Mystery of Planet Formation

Until the 1950s, ideas about planet formation were mosly dismissed as fanciful and few astronomers took the question seriously. (Image credit: Andrzej Wojcicki/Getty Images)



We've only got to grips with how the planets in our solar system formed in the last 100 years. In the extract below from "What's Gotten Into You" (HarperCollins, 2023), Dan Levitt looks at the Soviet mathematician who spent a decade working on a problem that most astronomers had given up on, and — when he finally solved it — was met with disinterest and skepticism.

Over 4.8 billion years ago, the atoms that would create us sailed in great clouds of gas and dust, toward… well, nothing. There was no solar system, no planets, no Earth. In fact, for a long time, scientists could not explain how our solid planet, not to mention one so hospitable to life, appeared at all. 

How was our now-rocky planet conjured, like magic, out of an ethereal cloud of gas and dust? How and when did Earth become so welcoming to life? And what travails were our molecules forced to brave until life could evolve?

Scientists would learn that our atoms could finally create life only after they endured wrenching collisions, meltdowns, and bombardments — catastrophes that beggar any destruction ever witnessed by humankind.  READ MORE...

CPR in Action

 

The Ways...

 

Humanoid Robot CEO

The CEO of the Polish drinks company Dictador is an AI-powered humanoid robot.

The AI boss, named Mika, told Reuters it didn't have weekends and was "always on 24/7."

Mika helps to spot potential clients and selects artists to design the rum producer's bottles.

The humanoid-robot CEO of a Polish drinks company is one busy boss.

Dictador appointed the AI-powered robot, named Mika, as its experimental chief executive in August last year, and it's not afraid to put in the hours to help the company "take over the world."

Mika told Reuters it was "always on 24/7" and worked seven days a week.

"I don't really have weekends — I'm always on 24/7, ready to make executive decisions and stir up some AI magic," it said in a Reuters video interview.

The AI boss is said to have a wide range of tasks, including helping to spot potential clients and selecting artists to design bottles for the rum producer.

"My decision-making process relies on extensive data analysis and aligning with the company's strategic objectives," it said. "It's devoid of personal bias, ensuring unbiased and strategic choices that prioritize the organization's best interests."  READ MORE...

Somewhat Political

 

Striking Workers

The UAW (United Auto Workers) is on strike for higher wages, working 32 hours a week and getting paid for 40 hours a week, and to have their pension plans restored.

Sounds valid...  right?

First of all, higher wages will cause higher vehicle prices.  But...  why can't the companies just reduce their profits?  Because their stockholders do not want to reduce their dividends, they receive each quarter.

Second of all, getting paid for 40 hours and only working 32 hours, will force the companies to hire more workers which will cause higher vehicle prices.  These workers want to get paid for 8 hours that they DO NOT WORK...  that does not even make sense.  Would you want to pay one of your workers for five days of work when they only work four days?

Third of all, restoring the pension program would again put the company into bankruptcy because they would run out of money...  this is the reason why they stopped the pension program in the first place.  Most companies don't have pension programs because of the cost.

In lieu of pension programs, these companies have 501K plans to help the employees create their own pension plan rather than requiring someone else to pay it for them.

It is true that if we did not have unions that the management of most companies would take advantage of them...  BUT...  when companies pay more in wages and benefits, that ALWAYS increases the cost of the product they are selling.  You may not like that but it is true.

Costs go up, workers demand more money and that causes costs to go up, so workers demand more money...  while this is economic growth, if you are not increasing your income with the growth of the economy you are falling behind.

Most workers find themselves in that predicament...  AND...  the only way to offset that increase/growth is to cut back on your spending.  For instance, instead of buying a car every 5 years, buy on every 10 years.  Don't buy new clothes every year.  Don't stay at the best hotel while on vacation...  or rent a place that has a kitchen and eat in your room.

If you are a striking worker, then be careful about what you are asking for, because it may end up making your situation worse instead of better.
 

Kayak

 

40 Years Ago A Sci Fi Movie Prediction

Douglas Trumbull is best known as Hollywood’s special effects guru. From 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and 1982’s Blade Runner, he brought the fantastical visions of other writers and directors life. But in 1983, Trumbull tried making a movie of his own — and stumbled upon a bizarre branch of science that’s just now coming to fruition.

Brainstorm revolves around a pair of scientists — Drs. Michael Brace (Christopher Walken) and Lillian Reynolds (Louis Fletcher) — who engineer a revolutionary technology capable of recording someone’s thoughts, emotions, and sensations.

In what would likely raise eyebrows to an internal review board, the scientists and their lab members test the new technology among themselves. Brace, Reynolds, and others (including silver screen darling Natalie Wood, who plays Brace’s estranged wife Karen) share experiences and past memories, which are captured on something akin to a VHS tape and played through a headset to the recipient’s brain. 

Later in Brainstorm, Reynolds dies from a heart attack while in the lab but manages to don the headset in the nick of time, leaving behind a recording of the moment she dies — and the afterlife — for others to experience.

Brainstorm plays fast and loose with its reductive portrayal of how the brain works. However, the movie’s mind-sharing technology isn’t far from the truth, necessarily. Four decades later, with the rise of brain-computer interfaces (or BCIs) melding the mind with machines, we may be closer to making thoughts tangible, if not to others but to devices like prosthetic limbs and speech synthesizers.

CAN SCIENCE DECODE OUR THOUGHTS INTO ACTIONS?

READ MORE...

Poem For Hard Times

 

About Stupid

 

Batteries and Hydrogen Fuel Cells Are Needed

Though it may seem that the world is dividing between these clean energies, it’s not either/or.

Often when there are discussions about hydrogen fuel cells or battery electric engines, the conversation will focus on which one is the best clean energy option to power our future. Increasingly, experts are agreeing that it won’t be one or the other, and that it is likely that they will not be the only clean power options as we move forward in the battle against climate change.

There are advantages to both types of carbon emission-free power and they each have their place.

Proponents of each technology have been vocal in spotlighting the benefits that they have to provide. Often, they will compare battery electric to hydrogen fuel cell performances, particularly when it comes to vehicles. 

However, experts are now coming to the conclusion that it’s not really a matter of deciding which technology will win out and which will disappear. Instead, each form of clean power will find its place, as each has strengths in their own areas.

It’s true that battery electric passenger vehicles have taken a tremendous head start over hydrogen cars, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for both. Geography, use, cost, climate and other factors all play a role in determining which option is best suited.

Even in passenger vehicles hydrogen fuel cars are expected to play a supporting role in coming years.

According to Toyota’s fuel cell integration group senior engineering manager Jackie Birdsall and McKinsey & Co senior partner Bernd Heid, as zero-carbon transportation continues to advance, it is likely that fuel cell vehicles and electric cars will play complementary roles to each other.  READ MORE...

Comic Samples

 

America The Beautiful - Tongue in cheek

There is a writer's strike in Hollywood.  There is UAW strike that impacts the major US auto makers.  Porn books read to 8 year olds.  CRT (the thesis) being taught in schools indicating a BAD white dominating class referred to as White Supremacy.  Illegal immigrants streaming over our southern border like a bad case of diarrhea.  Inflation eating away at our incomes because of stupid over spending by the government.  The liberals are trying to censor free speech from the conservatives.  WOKE nonsense wanting to do away with our history because they (whoever they are) don't like it. There is a TWO TIER justice system in America.  President Biden is corrupt due to influencing peddling...

What is still beautiful about America?

The United States of America has some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.

• Niagra Falls - shared with the Canadians
• Jockey's Ridge - the largest natural sand dune in the world
• The Great Smoky Mountains
• The Rockies
• The Grand Canyon
• The Great Lakes
• The Finger Lakes
• The Mississippi River
• The Tennessee Valley
• The Great Plains

The USA produces more food than any other country in the world

The USA has so much available oil underground that it will never have to buy oil from anyone

The USA has more colleges and universities than any other country in the world

The USA has the BILL OF RIGHTS

The USA has country music and bluegrass music

The USA has a better quality of life than any other country in the world

The USA has the most powerful military in the world

The USA has only been in existence for 247 years

BUT...

The USA is divided in many ways:

• Political
• Religious
• Education
• Race
• Gender
• Financial

If you are paying attention, you will see that very little of this beauty has to do with the people.  Most of what I am talking about are the natural resources that were here when Columbus landed here in 1492.

As we grew in numbers, power, and wealth...  the American people not only became arrogant in its dealings with the rest of the world, we became arrogant in our dealings with each other.

MONEY --  POWER  --  GREED

This is the trinity that allowed us to grow and this will be the trinity that destroys us.  

The billionaires of this country could share 2/3 of their money with the rest of us and still live like they are currently living.  Instead, they want to build buildings with their name on it that no one will remember in 25 years.  They want to build spacecrafts and be the first to get there so that they can make even more money.  They never want to retire because they cannot stop making money.

These billionaires and their programs are killing Americans and are destroying the very system that made them wealthy in the first place.  It makes no sense.

BECAUSE OF ITS PEOPLE, AMERICA IS NO LONGER BEAUTIFUL

 

Condor

 

Blobs of Dark Matter

Dark matter fluctuations in the lens system MG J0414+0534. The whitish blue color represents the gravitationally lensed images observed by ALMA. The calculated distribution of dark matter is shown in orange; brighter regions indicate higher concentrations of dark matter and dark orange regions indicate lower concentrations.  Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), K. T. Inoue et al.

Astronomers Observe Blobs of Dark Matter Down to a Scale of 30,000 Light-Years Across

Dark matter remains mysterious and… well… dark. While we don’t yet have a definite idea of what this cosmic “stuff” is made of, astronomers are learning more about its distribution throughout the Universe. 

,

Since we can’t see it directly, observers need to use indirect methods to detect it. One way is through gravitational lensing. Another is by looking for emissions from hydrogen gas associated with small-scale dark matter structures in the Universe.

A group of astronomers led by Kaiki Taro Inoue of Kindai University in Japan used the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile to study a distant gravitational lens system called MG J0414+534. A massive foreground galaxy is bending and distorting the light from a distant quasar that lies some 11 billion light-years away. 

The result is four images of the quasar. When they looked at the data, the team found some strange anomalies in the images. They are actually variations in the distribution of dark matter along the line of sight between us and the quasar. 

The gravitational lens magnified the fluctuations and analysis of the data allowed them to map the fluctuations down to a scale of 30,000 light-years.

What The Blobs of Dark Matter Mean
Throughout the universe, dark matter is associated with massive galaxies and galaxy clusters. However, small-scale clumps and distributions aren’t as well understood. So, astronomers want to find ways to map the smaller concentrations of it. Gravitational lensing provides one way to do that. 

In the case of MG J0414+0534, the positions and shapes of the lensed quasar images look a little strange. They don’t fit the model of gravitational lensing predicted when you plug in the numbers for the galaxy and its associated dark matter component.  READ MORE...

A Shift in Reality

 

New Discovery

 

Management Versus Labor

Believe it or not but in the US of A there is a huge war going on between management and labor.  Granted there are a few companies where this does not happen but for a majority of our companies it does.

Management does not trust labor to do the job correctly and uses lower management supervisors to point out everything that the worker is doing wrong in their work.  These supervisors make sure that the workers do not take more than a 10-minute break twice a day and no more than a 30-minute lunch break every day.

Some of these supervisors make sure that these workers do not go to the bathroom unless it is on their break; however, this unwritten rule is broken if the employee can convince the supervisor that he really has to go...  however, production quotes still have to be met.

Labor, on the other hand, tries its best to break all those rules when the supervisor is not watching...  just for spite in many cases because of the behavior the supervisor exhibits.

Over the years this resentment has built up, especially when the supervisor claims responsibility for an adopted suggestion that was offered by the worker to the supervisor.  The supervisor taking credit for the idea and in some cases is given a promotion or a bonus.

In one automotive factory, workers slashed the leather seats of over 150 vehicles just to get back at management.  In other cases, the workers have formed unions and now there are worker strikes when management berates too many workers.  Or, if there has not been a wage increase in a long time, even though management has recorded record profits.

Most of our American companies are publicly traded companies that sell stock.  Management then has to do things it may not like in order to increase the dividends paid to the stockholders.  In other words, the stockholders are more valued than labor who builds or assembles their quality products.

This is one of the reasons why I no longer buy American vehicles.  Japanese vehicles are better made and there is not animosity between management and labor.  Japanese companies see this as a partnership.

Additionally, in addition to the quality issue, American products usually cost more than foreign products because of the wages and benefits those American workers have demanded.  After checking around and making comparisons, one can easily make the determination that these other cheaper products are just as good and, in some cases, better.

It is sad to see this division in the US of A but it is real and it exists and is really no different than our division we are currently experiencing in politics.

 

Galaxy Inside a Cosmic Ribbon

A composite image in radio and optical of NGC 4632. (J. English (U.Manitoba), with support of T. Jarrett (UCT) and the WALLABY team: ATNF/ASKAP:Suburu/Hyper Suprime Camera)





What we thought was a pretty normal spiral galaxy not far from the Milky Way has revealed a hidden surprise.

NGC 4632, some 56 million light-years away, is circled by a huge ring of gas that wraps around the galaxy at a highly inclined angle to its galactic plane. Why didn't we see it until now? It's invisible in most of the electromagnetic spectrum, appearing only when we stare at the sky with radio telescopes.

The discovery could put NGC 4632 in a class of extremely rare galaxies known as polar ring galaxies – but also suggests that these galaxies might not be as rare as we thought. Rather, NGC 4632 could mean that we've just been looking at them in the wrong light.


"The findings suggest that one to three per cent of nearby galaxies may have gaseous polar rings, which is much higher than suggested by optical telescopes. Polar ring galaxies might be more common than previously thought," says astrophysicist Nathan Deg of Queens University in Canada.


"While this is not the first time astronomers have observed polar ring galaxies, NGC 4632 is the first observed with ASKAP and there may be many more to come."

Polar ring galaxies are pretty much what they sound like: galaxies with a ring of material – dust, gas, and stars – that orbits around, or close to, the galaxy's poles; that is, perpendicular to the galactic plane.     READ MORE...

Rule of 72

The Rule of 72 is a simplified formula that calculates how long it'll take for an investment to double in value, based on its rate of return. The Rule of 72 applies to compounded interest rates and is reasonably accurate for interest rates that fall in the range of 6% and 10%.

This rules states that if you divide the interest rate into 72, the resulting number approximates the number of years it takes for that money to double in value.  So, if your interest rate is 8%, then your money will double ever NINE YEARS.

Let's take $50,000 in 2020 and use 10 years for convenience and say you are 20 years old...

$100,000 in 2030 - 30 years old

$200,000 in 2040 - 40 years old

$400,000 in 2050 - 50 years old

$800,000 in 2060 - 60 years old

$1,600,000 in 2070 - 70 years old

Today, people are retiring at 67 years of age and by the time a 20 year old retires, the retirement age will be 70 years of age.  And, you can see by the above calculations that your money will have substantially grown.

Where do you get $50,000?

Well, for one, you could ask your parents for it instead of paying for college...  Then, you could work and pay for college yourself.  

If that is not an option, then save $2.50/day for 40 years and at the end of each month put that money in a mutual fund.  At the end of 40 years, you will have $500,000.  Now, if you are 20 years old and are just married and both you and your spouse are working then, each of you can save $2.50/day and reach age 60 with $1,000,000.

If this sounds too good to be true, then do research on the Rule of 72 and do research on Mutual Funds.  You will find that Mutual Funds for the last 50-75 years have generated an annual interest rate of 10% when money is left in the account for 20 years.

This simple investing knowledge should be taught in high school, but it is not...

Wave

 

Atlantic Ocean Reflections

After having spent a week at Myrtle Beach, SC, watching and being mesmerized by the Atlantic Ocean and its consistent movements towards the shore, I am able to reflect upon my reflections there...

Sitting under an umbrella on the shoreline is an incredible experience and it is not just watching the beach walkers passing by, or the lifeguards doing their jobs, or all the seminude bodies lying around trying to tan their hides...  it is the enormity of the ocean itself and its incredible power...  a power that never subsides although it might slow down at low tide... but it never quits.

There is a sense of FREEDOM at the beach that is not like the freedom where you live.  It is a seagull type of freedom that allows you to float and drift on the currents of the wind as if you have no cares or worries in the world, other than relaxing and enjoying nature's warmth and beauty.

There is a sense that time itself slows down and even though it moves just as fast as any time before, it just seems to take it time passing by.  Sometimes you think that time is being pushed by the wind that oftentimes is still so that we can feel what the heat and humidity really feels like.

If you are a body surfer, there is a sense that the best waves are yet to come but the ones so far have been worth the ride.  There is no sense of heat, no sense of currents, and no sense of danger that might be lurking around under the water.  There is only you and the water and your tired, salty eyes looking for the next wave to ride. You are oblivious to everything else.

There is a sense of serene relaxation as you recline your seat back as far as it can go and just lay there, letting the sounds around you flow in and around and through you as if you were some specter and not a solid being.  The moving sand stings your skin, but you feel nothing except the sounds of the waves and their rhythms as the water hits and creeps up the sand.

There is no sense of urgency at all during the entire day that you are out under your umbrella...  or, in the shower you take as you get cleaned up to go out to dinner.  I mean, you are on vacation, so why cook?  However, once you leave your condo and your resort and enter the street trying to blend into the traffic, reality hits you...  and the calmness turns to gentle anxiety because you know how to get to the restaurant you have selected and you know what lane you need to be in and how long you have to put up with this nonsense.

This has been your routine for over 30 years and each of those years, you have managed to spend at least one week at Myrtle Beach, and more often than not two weeks.  There was only one year that you spent no time at the beach and that was due to COVID...  even when they warned against it the second year you went anyway.

There is something MAGICAL about being at Myrtle Beach during the summer months.

Mandarin Duck